Friday, January 23, 2009

CleanQuest 2009

Last year, I took a week's vacation and called it a Cleaning Sabbatical. It was grueling but immensely satisfying. I had some small hope that my work would propel us into a generally more ordered existence, but old habits die hard. A year later, there's still a storage container crammed with stuff to go to Goodwill, and clutter has once again claimed the perimeters of our home and begun to creep across the floors and up the bookcases.

My goals this year are more modest: at the end of the week, I would like to have the carpet steam-cleaned. But before strangers are allowed in (indeed, before anyone but our dearest friends can come in) everything needs to be picked up from the floor of every carpeted room.

This won't be a complete sabbatical. This a crucial time for a few projects at work, and I expect I'll have to go in for a few meetings. But I'm determined to do something productive every day.